USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 41
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Resolution. "Resolved-That the signature of every individual present be solicited to the following pledge and appeal ; and that the same be printed, and presented to the citizens of each school district in town for the sanction of their names."
Pledge. "We, the undersigned, citizens of the town of Concord, believing that intoxicating drinks of every description, used as a bev- erage, are not only useless, but injurious to men in health under all circumstances ; and being fully persuaded that it would conduce to the best interests of said town, and tend greatly to promote the mor- ality, happiness and prosperity of its citizens, of all classes and con- ditions, wholly to abolish the using and vending of such liquors within its limits, except for medicinal and mechanical purposes, hereby pledge to the accomplishment of so desirable an object our best exertions." 4
The pledge, with accompanying appeal, received the signatures of one thousand seven hundred and sixty inhabitants of the town, male and female ; while the movement was efficiently promoted by Frank- lin Pierce, who, on the evening of the 22d of June, following, at the
1 Henry McFarland's " Personal Recollections," p. 52.
2 Bouton's Concord, 460.
3 Bouton's Concord, 453. 4 Ibid, 454.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Old North, delivered a powerful address in support of it, that held, for an hour and a half, the breathless attention of his audience.1 But, notwithstanding the urgent appeal of more than seventeen hun- dred inhabitants, the liquor traffic was not discontinued ; for the con- siderable capital invested in it, though deriving less profit from home demand, yet found much from supplying intoxicants to other towns, from which the sale of ardent spirits had been excluded. Early in the last month of the year 1843, the Reverend Mr. Bouton, the pulpit pioneer of local temperance reform, delivered a timely address2 detailing the progress of that reform, in a faithful historical present- ment of facts, accompanied by impressive inferences, and, by wise suggestions as to future procedure-but not yet by that triumphant display of " trophies," as already specified in this chapter, which he would be able to make thirty-two years hence. As was natural enough, within twenty days after the delivery and publication of the stirring address, a temperance meeting was held, and, as a measure of restraint, at least, a committee was raised "to prosecute all per- sons who " should "continue to sell intoxicating liquors in town." At the town-meeting in March, 1844, the question of " License or No License " was hotly contested, and the three "No License " candi- dates for selectmen were elected. These were Nathan Stickney, Whig, and Jeremiah Fowler and Jeremiah S. Noyes, Democrats-all of whom were re-elected the next year.
At length temperance organization took another effective form when the " Order of the Sons of Temperance " was instituted. Two divisions of the order were established in Concord-the "Tahanto, No. 6," on the 14th of January, 1847,3 and the " Aurora, No. 12," on the 13th of January, 1848.3 Each had an active membership of goodly numbers, and held regular weekly meetings ; the former at Tahanto hall, opposite the Phoenix hotel ; the latter at Temperance hall, in Dunklee's building-one of the finest halls used by the order in the state.3 The order soon took largely " the place of the other active temperance organizations in town,"3 though the Concord Tem- perance Society remained in active existence.
As early as 1835 the Young Men's State Temperance Conven- tion had denounced "licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors " as " throwing over immorality the shield of legislative sanction," and had thus struck the keynote of prohibition. Though moral suasion, with its pledge, and under license, was leading many an individual to give up alcoholic drink, yet all the while the question was recurring with ever-increasing emphasis, Would it not be better " to keep the
1 Bouton's Concord, 454.
2 Bouton's " History of Temperance Reform in Concord."
3 David Watson's Directory, 1850, p. 87.
383
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.
drink away from all individuals"1 by absolute prohibition of the traffic therein? Towards the affirmative answer to this question, public opinion, especially in New England, was tending years before prohibitory legislation was tried. Concord was abreast with the pre- vailing tendency. Thus, by the year 1848, the town had advanced so far towards prohibition as significantly to cast one hundred and eighty-six votes in the affirmative to none in the negative upon the question submitted by the legislature, " Is it expedient that a law be enacted by the General Court prohibiting the sale of wines, or other spirituous liquors, except for chemical, medicinal, or mechanical pur- poses ?" 2 Again, in 1851, the selectmen were instructed to license but one person to sell spirituous liquors and wines for medicinal, mechanical, and chemical purposes ; and accordingly Joel C. Dan- forth received license.3 Still again, on the 15th of March, 1852, the town authorized the appointment of two agents, having no " pecuniary interest in the quality or quantity " bought or sold-the "one resid- ing in the main village, and the other, in Fisherville-to sell suitable spirituous liquors and wines for medicinal or mechanical purposes only -the said liquors and wines to be tested by some person experienced in the properties and qualities of the same, and having no pecuniary interest therein."4 This action was accompanied by the decided ยท expression in favor of prohibition, embodied in the following vote : " That the representatives elected on the 9th and 10th inst., to repre- sent this town in the next legislature of this State, are hereby in- structed to use their influence, and give their votes, for the passage of a law similar, in all its leading parts and provisions, to the law now in force in the State of Maine, entitled ' An act for the suppres- sion of drinking-houses and tippling shops.'"4 It was not, however, until after the town became the city that legal prohibition became the prominent policy of temperance reform, the progress of which under the new conditions will be noted in future narration.
It was natural that the moral awakening as to temperance should be accompanied by religious progress. In fact, it is recorded 5 that, from 1827 to 1842, "almost a continuous religious interest " per- vaded " the minds and hearts of the people," resulting in the greatly enlarged membership of existing churches. Especially, both in Con- cord and throughout the state, was this true of the year 1831-the "memorable year," as sometimes styled. It has been written of the meeting of the "General Association of New Hampshire," held that
1 Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott's introduction in John B. Gough's " Platform Echoes," p. 52.
? Bouton's Concord, 465.
3 Ibid, 469-70.
4 Proceedings of Town Meeting, pp. 14, 15.
6 Dr. Bouton' Third Semi-Centennial Discourse, 1875, p. 33; also, Discourse Commemora- tive of a Forty Years' Ministry, 1865, p. 19.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
year at the Old North in Concord, that the "ancient temple was filled with the glory of God. Touched by His spirit, the hearts of the people melted and bowed before the Lord. As the result, one hundred and one were added to the church. In subsequent years, sometimes in connection with special means, and sometimes by ordi- nary means diligently used, large accessions were made." Those " times of refreshing "-according to the same authority-increased not exclusively the membership of the North church, but correspond- ingly that of the Baptist, and of " other churches that improved the heavenly visitation." 1
With the growth of the town in population and material strength, the number and variety of church organizations increased. Of these seven existed in 1830:2 The First Congregational, or the North; the Second Congregational, or the Unitarian ; the First, or Calvinis- tic, Baptist; the Methodist; the Episcopal ; and the Friends. Soon came a remarkable colonization. " Within a space of ten years, with- out so much as a ripple of discord," three churches left the parent North, for separate, permanent, and prosperous establishment-the West, in 1833, the South, in 1837, the East, in 1842. In the early '40's the Universalists, the Freewill Baptists, and the Adventists had their respective societies permanently established in the main village. Later the Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and Universalists were in organization at Fisherville; the Congregational church hav- ing been formed in 1850-an offshoot mainly of the West, or West Parish, church, and consequently, a grandchild of the North. As early as 1833 there was a Christian Baptist society in the region of the Contoocook, " the members of which resided principally at the Borough and Horsehill." 3 This was recognized for more than twenty years later in the distribution of the parsonage fund.4 But while religious societies were multiplying, the "Meeting" of the Friends, which had existed more than thirty years, was discontinued in 1840, and its meeting-house becoming the property of the Elev- enth School District, was for a time used as a schoolhouse.
By 1850 at least ten meeting-houses of varied but becoming arch- itecture, and of more or less elaborate adaptation to their purpose, adorned the face of the town ; and even the Old North had seen its congregation withdrawn, on the 27th of November, 1842, to a New North. That removal had been preceded in September by a two days' union meeting of the mother church and the three Congrega- tional daughters. The pastors of the four churches, Nathaniel Bou-
1 See The Sunday School, in note at close of chapter.
2 Rev. S. L. Blake's Historical Discourse, 1877, p. 11.
3 Bouton's Concord, 619.
4 Town Reports, 1851, and following.
385
FREEMASONRY.
ton, Daniel J. Noyes, Asa P. Tenney, and Timothy Morgan, parti- cipated in the exercises. In the afternoon of the second day " five hundred and fifty communicants sat down to the Lord's Supper. It was," writes the pastor of the First church, "a season of tender and affecting interest. Many wept at the thought of separation from the place where they and their fathers had so long worshipped."
Thus was relinquished, as a place of public worship, the venerable edifice so richly garlanded with historic memories. Within five years it became, and for nearly twenty-one years continued to be, the seat of the first successful attempt of American Methodism to establish and maintain a distinct school for the training of its ministry. This school was " The Methodist General Biblical Institute." Though, as another has written, "a Methodist theological school could not be otherwise than radically Arminian in its teachings, and aggressively anti-Calvinistic," yet "it is a noteworthy fact that the establishment of the institute was made possible through the open-handed gener- osity and liberal sympathy of the First Congregational Church and Society of Concord-a church and society, which, for more than a century, had been a leading representative of New England Calvin- istic orthodoxy." 1 The offer of the building and its acre and a half of ground made by the North society, and supplemented by a citi- zens' subscription for remodeling the structure, was accepted by the " Wesley Institute Association," to be occupied at least twenty years for a theological school-the property thereafter to revert to its for- mer owners. A legislative charter was obtained, and the Biblical Institute was opened in 1847, and its eighteenth and last class in courses of three years was graduated in 1867. It was then removed to Boston, where it became the school of Theology of Boston univer- sity.2
From ecclesiastical and distinctively religious institutions, atten- tion may properly turn to those of unsectarian fraternity, social im- provement, and Christian benevolence. Of Freemasonry, the elder of two of these, mention has already been made in connection with the establishment of Blazing Star Lodge, No. 2, in Concord, in the year 1799. Thenceforward, during the first quarter of the new cen- tury, Masonry prospered throughout the country. But between the years 1826 and 1845 it declined in public favor, from causes which there is no room here to specify. More charters were surrendered than granted. But that of the Blazing Star Lodge was kept, and its organization was maintained by such " faithful brothers " as Hosea Fessenden, Abel Hutchins, Ebenezer S. Towle, and Isaac Eastman, until popular prejudice gave way to reason, allowing the work of the 1 William F. Whitcher, in Granite Monthly, April, 1899, p 224.
26 2 For other facts see special chapter on Education,
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
institution to go quietly on ; and " it was found that the brethren were good citizens, friends, and neighbors, and not engaged in plots and conspiracies, as their neighbors had professed to believe, but living creditably and acting honorably." 1
While Masonry was undergoing its ordeal, another secret benevo- lent and social institution had been growing in favor, numbers, and influence. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows had been insti- tuted at Baltimore, on the 26th of April, 1819, by five men of Eng- lish birthi, of whom Thomas Wildey was foremost. The first lodge bore the auspicious name of Washington. For some years the prog- ress of the order was slow, but at length it became more rapid, when certain obstacles, including prejudice against secret societies, inflamed by anti-Masonic agitation, had been surmounted. At "Father Wil- dey's " death, in 1837, the order "had 200,000 members enrolled in its ranks."2 In 1843 Odd Fellowship was introduced into New Hamp- shire, the first five lodges constituted being, in order, the Granite at Nashua, the Hillsborough at Manchester, the Wecohamet at Dover, the Washington at Great Falls, and the one " known and hailed as White Mountain Lodge, No. 5," at Concord. The five charter members, authorized, under "the dispensation " of the Grand Sire of the Grand Lodge of the United States, "to constitute a lodge in the town of Concord," were Albert G. Savory, William T. Rand, Nathaniel B. Baker, George H. H. Silsby, and Edwin W. Buswell. On the after- noon of Wednesday, the 7th of February, 1844, the five met in Athe- nian hall, "small and somewhat stuffy," 3 situated a few steps north of the northwest corner of Main and Pleasant streets, and then and there instituted White Mountain Lodge. In the evening of the same day the membership became twenty, fifteen applicants having been admitted and duly initiated into the mysteries of the order. Within a month the twenty became fifty, and within a year the number swelled to one hundred and forty-three. Odd Fellowship, thus in- troduced, was to go forward in Concord, prospering and to prosper : with its Lodges, the White Mountain, the Rumford (instituted in 1867), the Grand, the Contoocook, and the Daughters of Rebekah, represented by the Fidelity and the Hannah Dustin; with its Encamp- ments, the Penacook and the Rumford; with its Grand Canton Wildey and Component ; with its Harmonial Association, an important social element; and, finally, with its Odd Fellows' Home ;- all effective means to desired beneficent results,-the last, moreover, being of it- self, both a shining result and a blessed means.
1 Horace A. Brown's Historical Address at Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of Blazing Star Lodge, June 1, 1899.
2 John W. Bourlet's Anniversary Address, Feb. 7, 1883.
" John W. Bourlet's Semi-Centennial Address, Feb. 7, 1894, p. 16.
387
ODD FELLOWSHIP.
That is proud testimony which could be borne by a competent wit- ness, on the fiftieth anniversary of White Mountain Lodge, in these words : "This Lodge has been engaged in this work for half a cen- tury. . Where distress and want have been found, there it has given relief. Where disease has laid its paralyzing hand, there watchful care and sympathy have been extended. Where death has entered the household, the last rites which the living can render the dead have been lovingly performed. The widow and orphan have not been neglected, and the benefactions of this Lodge have not neces- sarily been confined to the limits of its own membership. . . . It is a boast of the order that no Odd Fellow, or a member of his family, has ever become an object of public charity ; and it is equally true that no man imbued with the principles of the order can be other than an upright and exemplary citizen in all the walks of life." 1
Proud, also, is the testimony which another competent witness could give on the one hundredth anniversary of Blazing Star Lodge, wherein it was declared : "Our records attest that the lodge has not been unmindful of its obligations. It has dispensed its charity to the widow, the needy and unfortunate, from fire, from flood, from pov- erty's oppressive hand, quietly, and without ostentation, in the spirit of that charity which has for its sanction the Divine Master's com- mand, ' Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. '" 2
Thus acting upon principles fundamentally the same, differences of ritual and formula could not destroy fraternal sympathy between Freemasonry and Odd Fellowship, or even prevent many a brother in one from being a brother in the other. Their commodious temples stand in brotherly neighborhood, significant of a common beneficent mission, while each order strictly preserves its identity-and properly : for the world of charity is wide enough for both.
Attention now turning in historic glance to certain means of intel- lectual progress existent in Concord, at this period, finds a growing interest in the common school, howeverconservative may have been the public sentiment as to progressive educational changes. The appropriations for schools, keeping pace with the increasing number of scholars, were cheerfully made, but with comparative neglect of schoolhonses. An attempt made in 1846, under a law passed the year before, to effect a union of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh dis- tricts in the main village for the support of a High School, was unsuccessful. Nor could the scheme be carried ont until ten years later, when, in 1856 the three districts became one Union District- an event to be marked with a white stone in the educational history
1 John W. Bourlet's Semi-Centennial Address, Feb. 7, 1894, p. 29.
2 Horace A. Brown's Historical Address at Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Blazing Star Lodge, June 1, 1899.
388
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
of the town. Before this, however, the Tenth district had adopted, in 1850, the Somersworth act, so-called, passed in 1848, and had graded its schools, with the high school at the head. The same year the Third district, at West Concord, was organized under the same act, and a year later the Twentieth, at Fisherville, both with gradation, but without the high school. The Ninth and Eleventh districts in the center precinct, though not organized under the Somersworth act, went on until 1856 with gradation similar to that of the Third and the Twentieth.
In the fourth decade more than two thousand district schools were supported in New Hampshire at the public expense. While these enjoyed general favor and confidence, there was a growing desire to supplement their advantages by academic instruction. This desire, unaccompanied by any idea of combining, to some extent, primary and secondary education in the common school, led to a great mul- tiplication of Academies. One of these was the Concord Literary Institution and Teachers' Seminary. There was in its name and pur- pose a suggestion of the high and training schools of the future com- mon-school system. It was established by the subscriptions of citi- zens, who became its proprietors, and erected upon Academy hill a convenient building suitably furnished and equipped ; so that in Sep- tember, 1835, the institution was, with enthusiastic hopes, dedicated to its purposes, and forthwith opened in four departments to pupils of both sexes. Its corporate existence continued nine years, in the course of which Concord's first and last public academy did useful, honorable work.1
During this period the newspaper asserted itself as a potent edu- cator; and journalism, political, religious, and miscellaneous, com- petently met the requisitions of a progressive day and generation. But as the newspaper press is treated in a special chapter, present or future reference thereto in this narrative need be only incidental to the treatment of other subjects.
It is a fact worthy to be noted, as attesting the popular apprecia- tion of higher intellectual culture, that the Lyceum was a favorite institution in Concord. The lecture courses, provided by progressive young men in lyceum organization under the name of Concord, Pena- cook, or Merrimack, found cheerful public support; and the lecture platform of that and a later period, with such masters upon it as Emerson and Parker, Giles and Whipple, King and Chapin, Saxe and' Gough, Holmes and Lowell, Phillips and Beecher, always had its full, enlightened, and appreciative audience.
Nor did Concord lack scientific diversions. On the 14th of Febru-
1 See other facts in special chapter on Education.
389
NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.
ary, 1846, a meeting was held at the office of Charles H. Peaslee for the purpose of considering the expediency of forming a Natural His- tory Society. After remarks from Dr. William Prescott, who had suggested the movement, and from Rev. Mr. Bouton, Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel G. Upham, Paul Wentworth, Henry H. Carroll, and others, it was voted, on motion of Stephen C. Badger, to be expedient to form such a society. A fortnight later, one was organized with the following officers : William Prescott, president ; Nathaniel G. Up- ham, Paul Wentworth, vice-presidents ; Nathaniel B. Baker, record- ing secretary ; Asa Fowler, corresponding secretary ; Isaac F. Wil- liams, treasurer ; John H. George, librarian and cabinet keeper ; Joseph Low, Charles P. Gage, Richard Bradley, Abiel Chandler, managers. In August of the same year a corrrespondent of Hill's New Hampshire Patriot wrote: "The Natural History Society, organized only the last spring, has enrolled more than two hundred resident members and about one hundred and twenty corresponding members, and promises to be an important auxiliary in diffusing and perpetuating a knowl- edge of the natural productions of our state and country, as well as a most efficient means of self-culture. It has a hall, fifty by thirty feet, and a spacious room adjoining, in Ayer's block on Main Street, at the southeast corner of the State House Yard. In these are contained five or six hundred specimens in geology and mineralogy; one or two hundred in conchology ; a variety of insects; interesting artificial curiosities ; and the nucleus of a library. Meetings are held Satur- day afternoons with a view to mutual self-improvement."
The interest in the society, thus early manifested, continued for some time; its cabinet was enriched; addresses were delivered, and papers read at its meetings. It became also the depository of numer- ous specimens of New Hampshire geology and mineralogy, collected by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, in his scientific survey of the state. But at last, after eighteen years of more or less active existence, it lost, in a fire, which, on the 22d of April, 1864, destroyed the two upper stories of Ayer's block (then called Sanborn's), its hall with the val- uable contents thereof, and never afterward renewed its praiseworthy efforts.
Dr. William Prescott, a diligent scientist, and the society's first president, had also his private cabinet of geology, mineralogy, con- chology, ornithology, and miscellaneous curiosities, laboriously col- lected, and scientifically arranged, in a hall connected with his resi- dence, formerly the abode of Dr. Peter Renton. The collection was especially rich in conchology, representing one hundred and ninety- six of the two hundred and ten genera of shell-fish known to science, with most of the species complete. The other departments were also
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
very full. Many visitants yearly examined and admired the exten- sive, interesting, and instructive cabinet, till at length it became by purchase the much-prized possession of a flourishing college in a dis- tant state.
It seems worth while in this connection to record the fact that the hall thus latterly set apart for science had formerly been somewhat devoted to art. For in the early 40's it was occupied by the "Con- cord Thespian Society," consisting of ten ladies and twenty-seven gentlemen, for the frequent exercise of dramatic art in amateur theat- ricals, creditable to the histrionic talent of the performers and highly enjoyed by select audiences.1
With such progress in the moral, religious, social, and intellectual life of the town, material advancement was keeping pace, both as cause and effect. The New Hampshire Savings bank was instituted in June, 1830-the first of its kind in town; and in which two hun- dred and twenty-one persons deposited nearly nineteen thousand and five hundred dollars the first year2 of its long and honorable existence. More directly to meet the increasing wants of active business, the Mechanics' bank3 was organized in 1834-being Concord's third bank of issue. Its fourth was the State Capital, incorporated in 1852.
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